Ed Joyce and Mark Robinson, the Sussex captain and coach, have issued a public statement of their anger and hurt after Lou Vincent and Naveed Arif were charged by the ECB with match-fixing when playing for the county three years ago.

“My reaction to these stories was anger,” said Joyce, the former England and now Ireland batsman, who played in both the fixtures, against Kent and Lancashire, that have led to charges. “There was a lot of anger in the dressing room.”

“We have a dressing room that is hurting,” echoed Robinson, who said that the suggestion of anyone in the team not being 100% committed to the cause “sickens and disgusts us”.

Dave Brooks, who was the Sussex chief executive in 2011, has revealed that several players approached the club and Robinson with their concerns at the time, leading to the investigation, initially by the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption and security unit. The Lancashire game was a quarter-final in the Twenty20 Cup, so defeat cost Sussex a place in the lucrative finals day, while victory against Kent would have secured their place in the semi-finals of the 40-over tournament.

The suspicions lingered until the England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed last Thursday that Vincent and Arif had been charged. Robinson revealed that this had prompted a meeting of the Sussex squad over the weekend.

“When we met on Sunday the players wanted to express themselves and what they’re feeling,” Robinson said. “They wanted to express their remorse if these charges are proven.”

“To think there could be people in your midst who aren’t doing everything they can to win is the worst thing you can do to a professional sports team,” added Joyce.

“The question ’does Sussex have a problem?’ is what comes when you get a couple of alleged bad apples in your team. People start questioning the things you do.

“I’m as confident as I can be that it wouldn’t happen again because we have lots of good people. You can’t ever be 100 per cent confident because there are bad apples in every walk of life. But we have a great bunch of people with great leadership, so we’re confident we’re in a good place right now.”

Chris Cairns, Vincent’s former team-mate with New Zealand and the Chandigarh Lions in the Indian Cricket League, is understood to have been interviewed in London on Tuesday as part of the Metropolitan police investigation into Andrew Fitch-Holland, the barrister who represented Cairns when he successfully sued the former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi for libel last year, and who was arrested in March on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Fitch-Holland denies any wrong doing. Cairns is also expected to be interviewed by the ACSU this week.